“No. Nothing like that. Nothing easy.”
“Those are easy?”
“Each of those things has rules.”
“The devil has rules?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He winked, and I refused to acknowledge what that did to my internal temperature.
“Okay, I’ll bite. What thing without rules is guarding the portal?”
We’d made it to the park and turned onto the narrow road wending down the hill to the lake. Since it was early morning on a school day, the park was empty.
I followed Ryder’s truck down the great rolling hill surrounded by tall fir trees to the parking lot at the bottom.
The big metal dragon statue stood watch at the top of the hill, a ramble of play structures stationed on two levels below. Behind us was a sandy stretch, the boat dock, and finally, the lake, bright and broad and waiting for swimmers, fishermen, jet skis, and boaters.
I’d seen the lake so many times—in sunlight, snow, rain—that it didn’t always hit me how beautiful it was. I was born here, grew up here. I’d spent as much of my summers on the lake as I had on the beach.
It was home, familiar, common. But at moments like this, the lake polished into sapphire and milky opal by the wide blue arc of the sky and striated clouds, I realized what a lovely, special place Ordinary really was.
“Where’s the portal, what’s guarding it, why are you so quiet?” I parked and turned toward Bathin.
His eyes were wide, really wide. Like he had just seen something that scared the hell out of him.
“Bathin?” I almost reached for him, but course-corrected and reached for my firearm, checking to be sure it was at my side, in my holster.
Demons could be anything they wanted you to think they were. Fake any emotion, if it got them what they desired.
So Bathin might not really be afraid of the thing he was staring at. It might all be an act.
My gut said no. This man, this demon, was afraid.
The tug in my chest—sharp like salt in a wound—said it was time to get out of the car.
Move, go, now.
“It’s worse than I thought,” he whispered. He wasn’t talking to me. Probably didn’t even realize he was sitting in a car next to me.
Terrific.
I left him to it. It didn’t matter what kind of monster we had on our doorstep. What mattered was, if the monster wanted to stay here, it had to wipe its feet on the mat and follow the rules of Ordinary.
Move. Go. Now.
I slipped my bag to one shoulder and got out of the car. I strolled over to Delaney who was next to Ryder.
Both of them stared up past the gray, brick retaining wall decorated by a school of metal fish, to the chain-link fence and the wooden maze of play equipment built and connected like a rambling castle.
Beyond that was a higher flat spot with brightly colored play equipment, and still farther, at the very top of the hill, and out of view from this angle, was the metal dragon statue.
Where was I supposed to be?
The tug in my chest became a warmth instead of a spike of pain. I was headed to the right place. To the right time.
Did I need to open the trunk? Pull out something I’d stashed there?
The tug didn’t change, didn’t pull that way. What I had on me—my weapon, my pockets, my bag—would be enough.
